Etymology

garden path sentence

gar·den path sen·tence

Today it means: A sentence that is easily parsed incorrectly when first read, due to the ambiguity of a word or words. Full definition →

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The story

From the idiom lead someone up (or down) the garden path, because readers form an interpretation of the sentence which remains plausible until near the end of the sentence, at which point the readers realize that their interpretation cannot be right (they have been led up a garden path) and they must try another interpretation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.